Swissquote Review

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Swissquote is a leading online broker that have multiple regulations, a large range of trading instruments for you to choose from, competitive spreads and zero commissions. I like their offering of user-friendly trading platforms, flexible account types, advanced trading tools and educational materials. In addition, Swissquote offers comprehensive wealth management and advisory services. They are a leading bank in online financial services and offer clients innovative and state-of-the art solutions to meet their investment needs.

Summary

Founded in 1996, Swissquote Group Holding Ltd is a Swiss banking group that specialises in the provision of online financial and trading services. Swissquote Group Holding Ltd (SQN) has been listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange since May 2000 and has since grown into one of the leading global online brokers. I appreciate how they are constantly striving to deliver the latest innovative technologies to offer superior trading conditions to clients.

Swissquote are headquartered in Gland, Switzerland with offices in London, Zürich, Bern, Dubai, Malta and Hong Kong. The Group employs hundreds of members of staff and serves over thousands of clients worldwide. I’m impressed by the fact that they offer one of the largest ranges of tradeable instruments across multiple asset classes including Forex, Commodities, Cryptocurrency, Stocks, Shares, Indices, Metals, Energies, Options, Bonds, ETFs & CFDs.

Trading Conditions

They provide you with a range of free to use, user friendly and award-winning trading platforms, complete with premium trading tools and plugins. They even have a great variety of daily news reports and expert market analysis along with educational materials to increase your trading knowledge. There is multilingual client support if English is not your native language.

I found the trading conditions are very competitive with transparent pricing and execution speeds. All trading costs are included in the spread with no commissions and no hidden costs. I really benefitted from competitive spreads, low margin rates and flexible transaction sizes.

You can get direct access to deep liquidity pools with anonymous access to an aggregated pool of 16 major liquidity providers. This is great if you are using scalping strategies that need the best prices and execution speeds.

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Regulation

The Swissquote Group and its related companies are structured to support their global operations with efficient regulatory oversight. Each Swissquote entity is regulated by the relevant regulatory authority within the country it resides in. I have peace of mind knowing that they’re regulated by a tier-one regulatory body. This regulation gave me peace of mind that I’m trading with a reputable online broker.

SwissQuote Bank Ltd is located in Switzerland, regulated by the Swiss Federal Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) and a member of the Swiss Federal Banking Commission (SFBC).

Swissquote Ltd is the European subsidiary of Swissquote Bank. Swissquote Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the United Kingdom. FCA regulation ensures that they must abide by highly ethical, secure and transparent standards.

Swissquote MEA Ltd. is a subsidiary of Swissquote Bank SA that is based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. They hold a category 4 licence from the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) and have their headquarters located at the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC).

Swissquote Asia Ltd is licensed with a type 3 licence (Leverage Foreign Exchange Trading) under the supervision of the Securities & Futures Commission (SFC) in Hong Kong.

Swissquote Financial Services (Malta) Ltd is regulated under the supervision of the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) with a category 4 license. They offer services from Malta to clients all over the world.

Overall, you will find that Swissquote are one of the most well-regulated brokers that you can find, along with the likes of AvaTrade.

Countries

Swissquote trading services are not available to some countries including Algeria, Belgium, Canada, China, France, Hong-Kong, Iran, Iraq, Japan, North Korea, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Syria, Turkey, USA, Zimbabwe. If you belong to any of those countries and want to find a broker that is available to you, you should check out our broker comparison tool.

Platforms

Swissquote has 3 award-winning, powerful and user-friendly trading platforms for you to choose from. There is the popular MetaTrader 4 (MT4) & MetaTrader 5 (MT5) platforms as well as the in house developed Advanced Trader platform. Platforms are available for desktop, web and mobile. They come with complimentary analysis tools and plugins.

There is also a FIX API trading solution for institutions, corporations and sophisticated traders who need a more specific and bespoke trading environment. Unfortunately, Swissquote does not offer a social trading platform. If you prefer a broker that offers social trading, you should check out eToro.

Advanced Trader

Advanced Trader is Swissquote’s award-winning proprietary trading platform which includes a set of powerful built in trading tools and an intuitive user-friendly interface. I like how it is designed to meet clients’ ever growing demands in a fully customisable environment for convenient and efficient trading. Most of you will probably be happy with MetaTrader platforms but if you have more complex trading needs then this could be a better option for you.

Swissquote Advanced Trader Platform

One of my favourite features of this platform is that you can personalise the interface according to your preferences with the instruments and tools that you need. It includes features for performing trading operations faster. There are chart analysis tools including 40+ technical indicators (Moving Average, MACD, Bollinger Bands, Stochastic, RSI, Heikin-Ashi, etc) and an integrated real-time news feed from Bloomberg and Swissquote.

The automatic pattern detection tool can save you time from having to analyse the charts by analysing them for you automatically. It will detect and highlight 17 of the most commonly used chart patterns along with a colour coded pattern strength indicator. This tool can present you with potential trading opportunities on multiple currency pairs and timeframes. I haven’t seen this tool being offered by most brokers which makes it a pretty unique offering.

Advanced Trader supports multiple order types, some of which are not available on other platforms. Order Cancels Other (OCO) combines a stop order and a limit order. If one of the order types is executed then the other order type is automatically cancelled. “If done” is a two-step order in which the second step will only be executed if the conditions of the first have been completed. The “If done / OCO” order type is a variation of the if done that will place an Order Cancels Other (OCO) following execution of the order in the “if done” section.

You can download the Advanced Trader desktop version and use the mobile or web versions of the platform if you need to trade whilst on the move. I appreciate that the web version allowed me to trade from directly within my web browser without needing to download any software. The mobile version is available for all iOS and Android devices from the relevant app stores.

MetaTrader 4 (MT4)

MT4 is one of the most popular trading platforms on the market with an abundance of trading tools, plugins, one-click trading, expert advisors (EAs) for automated trading and many other features. MT4 was developed by trading software company MetaQuotes and is used around the world by traders of all experience levels. MT4 is my favorite trading platform due to its quick learning curve and ease of use whilst having enough advanced functionality to satisfy the more experienced traders.

MetaTrader 4 (MT4) Platforms

MT4 has a wealth of built in technical indicators which can be applied to multiple chart types and 9 timeframes. I like these indicators because they can be used to spot trends, ranges and to analyse the market for potential trade opportunities. In addition to the 30+ built in indicators, I also had access to thousands of free and paid custom indicators and EAs from the MQL market place which can be accessed from within the platform. MT4 has 24 analytical objects which I found very useful for chart analysis including lines (support, resistance, etc), channels, Gann and Fibonacci tools, shapes and arrows.

MT4 has support automated trading with EAs and copy trading. There is the MetaEditor where I was able to code my own custom indicators or EAs in the MQL programming language. The strategy tester can be used to back test EAs over historical data downloaded directly from the broker or an external provider. You can view the profiles of hundreds of traders and choose to copy their trades automatically. It should be strongly noted that historical performance is by no means a guarantee of future performance.

The Swissquote MT4 platform supports 2 different types of market orders, instant or market execution. The instant order is executed or rejected at the requested bid or ask price for the full amount of the trade. For Stock Indices, the order will be executed at market best conditions. The market execution order is executed at the best available price or rejected if no price is available; the order is filled for the full amount but can be filled better or worse than the requested price.

MT4 is available on desktop (Windows / Mac), web and mobile (iPhone / iPad / Android / Tablet). I like how the web platform runs directly in most popular web browsers without the need for installing any additional software whilst the mobile application allows you to trade from the palm of your hands from anywhere in the world with an internet connection.

MetaTrader 5 (MT5)

MT5 is the next generation of the MetaTrader software. Following on from MT4, it maintains most of the core functionality with some added features for traders who are looking for the most comprehensive trading technology available. I find that the extra tools and trading instruments allow for greater flexibility in my trading.

MetaTrader 5 (MT5) Platform

MT5 has a good selection of technical indicators which can be used to detect trends and help forecast price direction. Users can choose from the 80+ built in indicators or create their own in the MetaEditor. The MQL marketplace has thousands of additional custom indicators that can be added to the platform. MT5 also has over 40+ chart analytical objects including Gann, Fibonacci and Elliott tools, geometric shapes, a variety of channels, levels for support/resistance and more. I like how the MT5 charts are fully customisable with other 21 timeframes to choose from compared to 9 timeframes in MT4.

MT5 has support for fully automated trading by using expert advisors (EAs) or copy trading from the many signal providers there are to choose from within the MQL community. I used the built-in editor to develop and back-test my own strategies in the multi-currency strategy tester with tick data. The marketplace has a large selection of EAs, some of which are freely available and some of which require a fee.

MT5 is available on desktop (Windows / Mac), web and mobile (iPhone / iPad / Android / Tablet). The web platform runs in web browsers without installing any software whilst the mobile trading app allows you to trade from your mobile devices whilst on the go.

FIX API

A Financial Information eXchange (FIX) protocol is the international standard for trading electronically and was developed to enable greater connectivity among market participants. FIX API’s are commonly used by institutions, corporations and sophisticated traders who need high-speed connectivity and ultra-low latency execution.

The FIX API offers a customised and flexible solution for tapping directly into Swissquote’s liquidity from your own platform. It is based on the FIX 4.4 protocol and can give increased control over your trading with optimal connectivity and performance. You can access real time and historical price quotes, along with having the ability to place market or limit orders over secure communication channels.

To qualify for Swissquote’s FIX API solution, clients must have a minimum deposit on their account of at least $50,000. I personally don’t think it’s worth that much. If you need FIX API trading, Global Prime are one of my top choices.

Tools

Swissquote has trading tools built directly within the trading platforms and offer the award-winning automated chart analysis software, Autochartist. They also have a portfolio service called Robo-Advisory if you want a hands-free trading experience.

Autochartist

Autochartist is an automated technical analysis plugin for MT4 that is available free of charge to Swissquote clients. I found it to enhance my trading by continuously and automatically scanning the markets for trading opportunities. It is one of the best tools for automated market analysis in my opinion, so it is great that the broker provides it free of charge.

Autochartist

It has the capabilities of recognising emerging and completed trade setups and will send you alerts when it finds them. I like how Autochartist can identify regular chart patterns, Fibonacci patterns and key levels. Trading setups are given a quality score based on historical performance. Historical performance is by no means a guarantee for future performance.

The risk calculator included can assist you with calculating your real capital exposure and set risk-adjusted position sizes. There is also an event impact analysis which help to evaluate the possible impact of economic events on specific instruments.

Other Autochartist features include customised filters, webinars, market reports, performance statistics, volatility analysis, price range forecast and a trading community tab. There is a step by step tutorial video that shows you how to find and set trades using Autochartist.

Robo-Advisory

Swissquote offer an alternative trading solution called Robo-Advisory which is based on an advanced algorithm that will analyse thousands of instruments to develop a personalised portfolio for you and monitor it 24/7, continuously optimising it.

I like how it is fully transparent and gives you full control on your investment. You can determine the risk, select your favourite instruments and modify the strategies at any time. Clients can open a Robo-Advisory demo account test it with virtual funds.

Swissquote launched its Robo-Advisor in 2010 when it became the first electronic wealth manager in Switzerland. It is based on the same algorithm they used for managing the Swissquote Quant Fund which received the Lipper Fund Award in 2016 for having achieved the best performance over 3 years.

Education

Swissquote offers educational material via a selection of trading videos, eBooks and webinars that aim to teach you various trading strategies and best practices in order to help you to improve your trading knowledge and reach your full potential.

Trading Videos

The Swissquote learning center has a section dedicated to trading tutorials that cover a variety of topics with a series of well explained and visually appealing videos. I appreciate that these videos are available in English and cover everything from trading tools, trading platforms, market analysis, risk management and more. There are also some PDF user guides available within this section.

Swissquote Trading Videos

Webinars

Swissquote offer frequent live and on demand webinars run by experts. The webinars enable you to increase your trading knowledge from the comfort of your chosen location. I like how they are available in English, French, German, Spanish & Arabic to cater to the international community.

Market Analysis

Swissquote has a team of expert analysts and researchers who conduct live daily and weekly market reports. I use these exclusive market insights as part of my overall technical and fundamental analysis.

Magazine

Swissquote publishes their own magazine which contains interviews and in-depth articles on key market players from around the globe, allowing me to draw upon on a range of innovative ideas for my own investment strategy.

Swissquote Pulse

This is a social networking platform where traders can share market news and analysis. Pulse is displayed as a feed and supports mobile push notifications.

Markets

Swissquote has a very large selection of trading instruments, including an impressive 8,500+ individual stocks based on shares of AU, US, CA, UK and EU companies. I think they have a good selection of indices based on baskets of different blue-chip stocks. They have over 800+ ETFs based on exchange-traded funds containing various tradable assets.

In addition to this, they offer a generous selection of 80+ major, minor and exotic forex currency pairs. It’s great that they offer 10 of the most popular cryptocurrency pairs including Bitcoin and Ethereum.

There are government bonds based on US, UK and German government securities. A vast range of commodity CFDs including metals and energies are also available to trade.

In terms of instruments, I would put them up there with TMGM, who also have a great range of financial instruments for you to trade.

Accounts

Swissquote offers a variety of account types suitable for the differing needs of traders. There are the Standard, Premium, Prime & Professional accounts. The main differences between the accounts are the spreads offered, minimum deposit required and minimum lot size. The tighter the spreads, the larger the initial deposit required.

You can open a new Swissquote account directly online. It took me only a few minutes to complete the application form. Once the process had been completed, I received e-mail confirmation. Following on from that I needed to upload proof of identification such as a passport or drivers license and proof of address such as a recent utility bill. Once my documents had been verified I could fund my trading account and commence trading. The customer support team is on hand to help should you need assistance during the account opening process.

Standard Account

The standard account has spreads starting from 1.7 pips and charges zero commissions. The minimum deposit required on this account type is $1,000 and minimum position size is 0.01 lots. I personally don’t think a standard account is worth $1000. You can try Trade Nation for a lower deposit requirement.

Premium Account

The premium account has spreads starting from 1.4 pips and charges zero commissions. The minimum deposit required on this account type is $10,000 and minimum position size is 0.1 lots.

Prime Account

The prime account has spreads starting from 1.1 pips and charges zero commissions. The minimum deposit required on this account type is $50,000 and minimum position size is 1 lot.

Professional Account

The professional account has customised spreads and bespoke pricing depending on your trading activity. The minimum balance depends on the volume that you plan to trade. You can contact Swissquote for customised pricing according to your requirements.

Demo Account

Demo accounts are available for you to test the different trading platforms and conditions before opening a real account. I think this is a great way for you to see if the broker is suitable for your needs before making a financial commitment.

Islamic Account

Islamic swap-free accounts that comply with Sharia law are also available upon request.

Support

Swissquote provides 24/5 customer support via online chat, telephone and email. They have a multilingual support team with offices in London, Gland, Zürich, Bern, Dubai, Malta and Hong Kong. There is a dedicated trading desk that is open 24 hours on trading days. Although they are quick to respond and very helpful from my experience, I would’ve liked to see them available on weekends as well. You can try EXANTE for 24/7 support.

Funding

Swissquote offer bank wire and credit/debit cards for depositing and withdrawing funds to and from your trading account. Some fees may be charged when using certain payment methods. I found bank transfers to take only a few business days to clear.

However, I am disappointed that we cannot make a deposit using eWallets as this is by far the most convenient option for me. I don’t always want to wait around for a bank transfer to clear and there are so many other brokers who support digital wallets these days. I found FXChoice to have the best selection of deposit and withdrawal options.

Swissquote strictly does not accept third-party payments. All funds deposited into your trading account must be under the same name as your Swissquote trading account.

Accounts can be opened in EUR, USD, GBP, CHF. The different currency options are beneficial as currency conversion fees do not apply when using an account in your own currency. This is a reasonable amount of currencies but they could improve by adding some more, such as the JPY.

Conclusion

I found Swissquote to be a leading broker. I like that they are regulated in multiple jurisdictions and offer a vast number of financial instruments for you to trade online. They are part of the large Swissquote Group Holding Ltd company who have a proven track record of offering financial services since 1996. This gives me confidence my funds are safe and I can trade without any issues.

They give you access to powerful and user-friendly trading platforms, flexible account types for you to choose from, advanced trading tools and educational materials for you to improve your knowledge of the markets. Spreads are competitive whilst there is zero commission charged on your trades. One of my favourite aspects of this broker is that their support team is very prompt, polite and efficient with their responses.

$1,000

Swissquote is a leading online broker with multiple regulations, a large range of trading instruments, competitive spreads and zero commissions. They offer powerful and user-friendly trading platforms, flexible account types, advanced trading tools and educational materials.

Between 74-89% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.

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